1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a suspension holder pallet, in particular, a suspension holder pallet suitable for use in the post-mounting of a slider to a suspension attached to an actuator block.
2. Related Background Art
Discussion of Background
Hard disk drives (hereinafter called HDDs) are increasing in capacity and being made thinner. Together with those advances, magnetic heads (20%, 30% sliders) are also being made smaller.
When bonding a slider, on which a giant magneto-resistive (GMR) element is formed, to a suspension with conventional processes of manufacturing magnetic heads, positioning of the slider is performed first using the external shape of the slider as a reference. An adhesive agent is applied to a rear surface side of the slider (side opposite to a side where an air bearing surface (ABS) is formed) after positioning the slider, and the rear surface side of the slider is made to contact a distal end of the suspension, which has been positioned by using a tooling hole or the like. The slider and the distal end of the suspension are bonded together through the adhesive agent. It should be noted that a suction nozzle slightly smaller than the surface area of the slider is generally used in moving the slider to the distal end of the suspension.
After bonding the slider and the suspension, thus forming a head gimble assembly (HGA), the HGA is assembled together with an actuator block, forming a head stack assembly (HSA) (refer to JP 4-17174 A (FIGS. 4A, 4B and FIG. 5), for example).
However, problems like those described below exist with the conventional magnetic head manufacturing methods described above.
To elaborate, the processing time is long because the slider undergoes the process for assembling the HSA after undergoing the process for assembling the HGA. A fear thus exists that elements within the slider may be damaged due to such factors as electrostatic discharge (ESD) or the like. When a non-defective slider at the HGA assembly state becomes defective during processing, the defects in the slider are discovered after HSA assembly. Finished product yield consequently decreases, with increases in cost.
Methods in which the suspension and the actuator block are assembled in advance, and then the slider is attached to the slider through post-mounting have been considered in order to resolve problems like those described above. However, a pair of suspensions that sandwich a magnetic disk face each other in the HSA. With a method in which the slider is attached to one suspension from a vertical direction by using a conventional suction nozzle, there is a problem in that the suction nozzle interferes with the other suspension facing the one suspension, making it impossible to attach the slider.
In the HSA state, a tooth-like jig called a comb is inserted between magnetic head suspensions, thus preventing contact between opposing magnetic head sliders. The following construction may be adopted to this end. That is, first, the suspensions are attached to an actuator block (with no slider mounted), and the comb is inserted between the opposing suspensions. After forming a gap between the distal ends of the suspensions by thus inserting the comb, the slider is attached to the distal end of each suspension. However, a comb is generally used simply for preventing contact between opposing magnetic head sliders, and hence applying it to implementations that involve post-mounting of a slider to a suspension will result in the following problem. That is, the distal end height of the suspension to which the slider is to be mounted is not maintained constant (e.g. relative to a mounting reference surface of the actuator block). When mounting the slider to the distal end of the suspension, an excessive load may be applied on the slider or the force with which the slider is pressed against the suspension distal end may become insufficient due to the resulting variations in the distal end height of the suspension.
Incidentally, there is a demand for improved efficiency in the production of HSAs, which are mass-produced according to the number of HDDs manufactured.
When, to this end, regulation of the distal end position of the suspension to which the slider is to be attached is performed on the device main body side where the slider is attached, without using the comb, the operation of removing the comb from the gap between the suspensions must be performed on the device main body side. This comb removal operation may add complexity to the equipment used and also cause a reduction in production efficiency.